Gov’t won’t even give page counts of secret PATRIOT Act documents

At a hearing today, a judge insisted the documents must be described.

OAKLAND, California—Lawsuits challenging government secrecy have fared pretty terribly in the post-9/11 era, with the most recent example being the Supreme Court's ruling last month that a group of journalists and activists have no right to sue over the FISA spying law.

Only a few cases of this sort are left, including two Bay Area lawsuits being pushed forward by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. One is the San Francisco case over NSA wiretapping, which the government is trying to shut down using the "state secrets" privilege. The other is EFF's case demanding to see documents about how the government is interpreting Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

It isn't just activists that are concerned, either. In 2009, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the government's use of "Section 215 is unfortunately cloaked in secrecy. Some day that cloak will be lifted, and future generations will ask whether our actions today meet the test of a democratic society." In 2011, two US Senators, Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO), publicly voiced their concerns, too, suggesting the government had a pretty wild interpretation of what it was allowed to do under the PATRIOT Act. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry,” Wyden toldThe New York Times.

It isn't known what kind of investigation those records would reveal, but there is some speculation that the Section 215 records are related to cell phone geolocation data. EFF's lawyer in charge of the case says if that is true, such data is probably being gathered on a "massive" scale.

Later that year, EFF filed a lawsuit [Complaint, PDF] insisting that some of those documents should be publicly disclosed. The government had stonewalled EFF's Freedom of Information Act request, so now the group wanted a federal judge to enforce its request.

Department of Justice lawyers said the FOIA couldn't be complied with, because it would reveal classified information about a "sensitive collection program."

The “list itself is classified”

In January, the government filed a declaration [PDF] signed by Mark Bradley, the FOIA director of DOJ's National Security Division, explaining what records would be responsive to EFF's request. The descriptions of the documents are extremely basic. For instance, Bradley explains that there are 200 relevant documents dated from May 2006 to Sept. 2011 that were provided to a key House intelligence committee, and that they total 799 pages. It goes on in that fashion.

At today's hearing in Oakland federal court, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers suggested that the document wasn't going to be sufficient.

"Why can't I have a basic categorization of what the documents are?" asked Gonzalez Rogers.

"Are you suggesting the number of pages of each document is classified?" asked the judge. "What's been provided is: '200 documents consisting of 799 pages.' That doesn't tell me anything. It doesn't tell the public anything. It was never explained to me how something as basic as a list with page numbers could, in any way, shape, or form, be contrary to the interests of the government."

"Mr. Bradley has sworn, under penalty of perjury, that to say more would tend to reveal classified information," said Bressler. "A wealth of information is available for in camera review." Information like page numbers and timing of documents "may be put together by targets of investigation, or adversaries of the United States," he said.

"What the defendant [DOJ] is doing isn't a national security concern," said Mark Rumold, the EFF lawyer arguing to release the documents. "It's a litigation tactic, used since the beginning of FOIA, to make it impossible for FOIA to challenge the government. The defendant can't even describe why they can't describe the records in more detail."

It's an extremely incremental step, but Gonzalez Rogers seemed to side with EFF today. She said she was inclined to issue an order that would ask for more detail about the documents.

"What I have here is, 'We sent them 200 documents.' That's not good enough," she said.

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Most transparent administration ever!

/s

Funny thing is, I don't know how much to blame Obama regarding this issue (disclosure: I have no allegience to any political party, as all politicians annoy me). I mean, yeah, he's the President, but how many of his underlings (both leftover from the last administration and his own) are pulling shit behind the scenes that even he's not aware of?

From what I've seen working as an indie contractor at the DoD, even at lower levels of government most administrative and managerial staff rely on reports that barely equate to cliff notes in terms of quality and thoroughness regarding projects under their control, making it extremely difficult to make informed decisions without setting aside large portions of their time to investigate the issue. I can't imagine the sheer volume of such reports someone running an entire freakin' country would have to wade through, but I imagine it'd be close to my own personal hell.

Our children, and our children's children, are going to have a good amount of justification in blaming us for the many ills that will no doubt eventually surface from this period. We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Most transparent administration ever!

/s

Funny thing is, I don't know how much to blame Obama regarding this issue (disclosure: I have no allegience to any political party, as all politicians annoy me). I mean, yeah, he's the President, but how many of his underlings (both leftover from the last administration and his own) are pulling shit behind the scenes that even he's not aware of?

From what I've seen working as an indie contractor at the DoD, even at lower levels of government most administrative and managerial staff rely on reports that barely equate to cliff notes in terms of quality and thoroughness regarding projects under their control, making it extremely difficult to make informed decisions without setting aside large portions of their time to investigate the issue. I can't imagine the sheer volume of such reports someone running an entire freakin' country would have to wade through, but I imagine it'd be close to my own personal hell.

Edit: Fixed some crap wording.

He could rather easily put his foot down and release anything that he wants. Being in charge of the executive branch, he can declassify anything he wants (or I should say, have it be declassified) and could easily deal with this.

This is entirely his own doing and his own choice. He has chosen to continue to grab power for the executive branch.

Our children, and our children's children, are going to have a good amount of justification in blaming us for the many ills that will no doubt eventually surface from this period. We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for. On most of the issues I follow, both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally horrible (though often for different reasons). So, I have plenty of people to vote against, but who should I vote for?

That's not to say 'there's nothing to be done', but saying 'vote them out' doesn't help at this point: we, as the citizens of this country, need a better strategy than just replacing one party with a near-mirror-copy.

Our children, and our children's children, are going to have a good amount of justification in blaming us for the many ills that will no doubt eventually surface from this period. We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for. On most of the issues I follow, both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally horrible (though often for different reasons). So, I have plenty of people to vote against, but who should I vote for?

That's not to say 'there's nothing to be done', but saying 'vote them out' doesn't help at this point: we, as the citizens of this country, need a better strategy than just replacing one party with a near-mirror-copy.

Ah yes, the "I am too uninformed to know anything, so I will claim both parties are exactly the same" bullshit that we saw in 2000.

This is a blatant lie. They aren't near mirror copies of each other. Both like power, by and large, but both have very different agendas. The Republicans are militant theocrats, while the Democrats are less-militant mixed-market people who really more or less represent everyone who isn't a militant theocrat now.

If you care about civil rights at all, you go for the Democrats; the only thing they don't care much for is guns. The Republicans are opposed to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, abortion, health care, regulation of industry and banks and pollution and of the military and government, pretty much everything. They're free market fundamentalists who have no understanding of how taxes work, they are against efficiency in government, and they are for the military-industrial complex (though it is unfair to say that all Democrats are opposed to it; many Democrats are part of it as well).

The real problem is that being a politician is a lousy job in many ways, so a lot of competent technocrats simply won't ever go into politics.

We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for.

That's a cop-out. If you don't like any of the choices, step up and add a new one to the list.

DStaal wrote:

On most of the issues I follow, both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally horrible (though often for different reasons). So, I have plenty of people to vote against, but who should I vote for?

I'm not an american so I don't know much about your political landscape, but I plan to vote for The Pirate Party in the next Australian election (which is this year). I know they are not going to win the election, but every vote they receive will have an impact on how much influence they have in their various efforts.

It's time to hold the government in contempt until it tells us all the laws we have to obey that aren't on the books!

That is hilarious, and if possible might actually have an effect. "US Government Held In Contempt of Court" makes for a good headline, and if this issue makes it to headlines you are bound to see the administration scramble to save face.

We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for.

That's a cop-out. If you don't like any of the choices, step up and add a new one to the list.

Not as much of a cop-out as it sounds like. There are a helluva lot of reasons starting a new political party here is ridiculously difficult. Try researching the pre-requisites for starting a new party (which is what you'd need to put in a new candidate - party lines are too deeply entrenched for a Democrat or Republican to make a real difference). Then notice that you would have to do that in several states, which requires a large, coordinated effort of like-minded people in enough states to get a majority of the electoral vote (not majority vote, but that's another issue). Did I mention all 50 states have different requirements for what it takes to get on the ballot?

That's leaving aside issues at the county level (not 'country', but 'county' - my ex was from Oz and was absolutely dumbfounded by how we divide up our country). There's a good reason all the parties aside from the Democrats and Republicans can't get more than a tiny portion of seats in our Congress, despite the obvious dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans with various aspects of our two party system.

We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for.

That's a cop-out. If you don't like any of the choices, step up and add a new one to the list.

Well, you did say you're from Australia.

In America, it isn't so easy to "add a new one to the list." We have only two major political parties, contrast that with most of the Westernized world that has many more. Without the financial and manpower backing of one of those two parties, it is highly improbable to get on a national ballot -- let alone win an election. Of the 535 elected Congressional members allowed to vote on bills (such as the Patriot Act), only two members are officially not affiliated with either major party -- but they caucus with one of the major parties anyway.

We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for.

That's a cop-out. If you don't like any of the choices, step up and add a new one to the list.

Not as much of a cop-out as it sounds like. There are a helluva lot of reasons starting a new political party here is ridiculously difficult. Try researching the pre-requisites for starting a new party (which is what you'd need to put in a new candidate - party lines are too deeply entrenched for a Democrat or Republican to make a real difference). Then notice that you would have to do that in several states, which requires a large, coordinated effort of like-minded people in enough states to get a majority of the electoral vote (not majority vote, but that's another issue). Did I mention all 50 states have different requirements for what it takes to get on the ballot?

That's leaving aside issues at the county level (not 'country', but 'county' - my ex was from Oz and was absolutely dumbfounded by how we divide up our country). There's a good reason all the parties aside from the Democrats and Republicans can't get more than a tiny portion of seats in our Congress, despite the obvious dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans with various aspects of our two party system.

It is also a result of the voting system that we use. As it stands, the guy with the most votes wins. Essentially this will always devolve into a 2 party system. There are some really good explanations out there, but it basically boils down to...

You start with 3 parties (it works the same if u use more). Of those 3 parties:

-You really love the long shot in party A. They're a perfect fit for your values, but unlikely to win.-You don't mind the guy in party B, he's moderately close to A but you don't agree with him completely. He has a good chance of winning.-You hate party C. He has a good chance of winning.

Voting for party A can/will have the effect of making party C more likely to win. People say it's "throwing away your vote" and the like to vote for a long-shot/3rd-party candidate. As a result, the populus will vote for the most likely to win candidate, that they hate the least. It will always result in 2 parties as the 3rd party candidate just makes the guy you hate the most more likely to win (or put another way, he steals votes from the guy closest to him).

Also, the two parties we do have are so entrenched that they're basically impossible to remove and replace with a 3rd party.

We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for.

That's a cop-out. If you don't like any of the choices, step up and add a new one to the list.

Well, you did say you're from Australia.

In America, it isn't so easy to "add a new one to the list." We have only two major political parties, contrast that with most of the Westernized world that has many more. Without the financial and manpower backing of one of those two parties, it is highly improbable to get on a national ballot -- let alone win an election. Of the 535 elected Congressional members allowed to vote on bills (such as the Patriot Act), only two members are officially not affiliated with either major party -- but they caucus with one of the major parties anyway.

Even that is giving too much credit to the illusion of choice. As long as a political party can be backed by money, ideology is a waste of time.

I'll say it again: Any government that needs this much secrecy is a government that I will personally not support.

What makes you thing they care in the slightest? There are always enough people who the TV ads can fool; and these days MOST people don't support (vote for) anyone. We won't get real options until "none of the above" is a ballot choice.

It is useful to note that in most cases where "state secrets" privilege has been invoked by the government and the facts eventually came out or were declassified after many years, the truth was that the government had no basis to claim the privilege and was simply trying to avoid embarrassing high level officials, protecting well connected corporations, and avoiding the disclosure of criminal acts by senior officials.

If Judges are going to keep expanding this "privilege" which does not exist in the constitution or any written statute, then Congress needs to clarify that written statutes such as FOIA and FISA's criminal sanction against spying on Americans over rides this lawless legal argument. Alternatively Congress should eliminate the privilege altogether or restrict its use that it cannot be abused to conceal incompetence or criminal activity.

One is the San Francisco case over NSA wiretapping, which the government is trying to shut down using the "state secrets" privilege.

The whatnow?

I've looked through the entire Constitution, and I haven't seen any such thing in it. The only mention of secrecy at all is regarding the journals kept by the houses of the legislature. This whole idea that evidence disappears because it might embarrass someone in the government? That idea needs to be fired into the sun.

We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

The power of the vote is meaningless without meaningful choices to vote for.

That's a cop-out. If you don't like any of the choices, step up and add a new one to the list.

Not as much of a cop-out as it sounds like. There are a helluva lot of reasons starting a new political party here is ridiculously difficult. Try researching the pre-requisites for starting a new party (which is what you'd need to put in a new candidate - party lines are too deeply entrenched for a Democrat or Republican to make a real difference). Then notice that you would have to do that in several states, which requires a large, coordinated effort of like-minded people in enough states to get a majority of the electoral vote (not majority vote, but that's another issue). Did I mention all 50 states have different requirements for what it takes to get on the ballot?

That's leaving aside issues at the county level (not 'country', but 'county' - my ex was from Oz and was absolutely dumbfounded by how we divide up our country). There's a good reason all the parties aside from the Democrats and Republicans can't get more than a tiny portion of seats in our Congress, despite the obvious dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans with various aspects of our two party system.

It is also a result of the voting system that we use. As it stands, the guy with the most votes wins. Essentially this will always devolve into a 2 party system. There are some really good explanations out there, but it basically boils down to...

You start with 3 parties (it works the same if u use more). Of those 3 parties:

-You really love the long shot in party A. They're a perfect fit for your values, but unlikely to win.-You don't mind the guy in party B, he's moderately close to A but you don't agree with him completely. He has a good chance of winning.-You hate party C. He has a good chance of winning.

Voting for party A can/will have the effect of making party C more likely to win. People say it's "throwing away your vote" and the like to vote for a long-shot/3rd-party candidate. As a result, the populus will vote for the most likely to win candidate, that they hate the least. It will always result in 2 parties as the 3rd party candidate just makes the guy you hate the most more likely to win (or put another way, he steals votes from the guy closest to him).

Also, the two parties we do have are so entrenched that they're basically impossible to remove and replace with a 3rd party.

It is possible for 3 party states to exist like in Canada where we have 3 major parities, NDP, Liberals and Conservatives. You just need a populace that is split into 3 relatively equal blocs or lots of swingers

Our children, and our children's children, are going to have a good amount of justification in blaming us for the many ills that will no doubt eventually surface from this period. We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

Voting isn't even all that essential to the process nor is it our greatest power. Our greatest power as the people is the jury and our ability to nullify. When you serve as a juror it isn't just your responsibility to decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, you also have the right to not agree with the law they violated. Nullification is our power to strike down laws in the courts, even if the state prosecution has you believing (and regardless if they are right or wrong) a defendant is guilty you can still move to nullify because you don't agree with the law he's being charged with breaking.

I'm not an american so I don't know much about your political landscape, but I plan to vote for The Pirate Party in the next Australian election (which is this year). I know they are not going to win the election, but every vote they receive will have an impact on how much influence they have in their various efforts.

The pirate party are a bunch of idiots. If you are going to vote you need to vote for people who aren't idiots. If you're going to throw a protest vote, vote for the Lizard People. Or me. I would like a Shiny New Australia.

Not as much of a cop-out as it sounds like. There are a helluva lot of reasons starting a new political party here is ridiculously difficult. Try researching the pre-requisites for starting a new party (which is what you'd need to put in a new candidate - party lines are too deeply entrenched for a Democrat or Republican to make a real difference). Then notice that you would have to do that in several states, which requires a large, coordinated effort of like-minded people in enough states to get a majority of the electoral vote (not majority vote, but that's another issue). Did I mention all 50 states have different requirements for what it takes to get on the ballot?

That's leaving aside issues at the county level (not 'country', but 'county' - my ex was from Oz and was absolutely dumbfounded by how we divide up our country). There's a good reason all the parties aside from the Democrats and Republicans can't get more than a tiny portion of seats in our Congress, despite the obvious dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans with various aspects of our two party system.

Thing is, you don't have to do it in all 50 states. The only nationally elected position is the President, and in any case, if you can't set up your party in all 50 states, then you don't have enough interest in your candidacy to run.

The real problem with setting up a third party is you have to stand independent of the other two rather than just being a spoiler - this is why the Constitution party, the Green party, and other similar parties are useless - they fall into the two "main camps" (the Democrats and Republicans). If you fall within the major parties, you're better off RUNNING in those parties rather than acting as a spoiler candidate; if you can't win the primary within your party where your position lies you'll have trouble winning in the general election.

There are some people who are not presently well represented by the system - these would be the anarchists and the libertarians. They're both idiots, but they really should have their own parties. They would never, ever win a national election though, and would never control Congress.

People always whine about politicians, so that is inevitable.

The reason why no one can beat the Democrats and Republicans is that they're too big of parties to beat. The Republicans make up a section of the country which are absolute diehard fanatics, while the Democrats havem ore or less become "everyone else", and running on the left as a spoiler candidate makes it more likely that you end up with someone like Bush or Romney in charge - people who are utterly incompetent. There are some indications that, perhaps, the Republican party will be forced to change - the Democrats are becoming too large, while the Republicans are becoming too small - but we'll see. We can only hope that the Republican party dies off and is replaced by some split from the Democrats, but we'll see.

Arclayn wrote:

That's leaving aside issues at the county level (not 'country', but 'county' - my ex was from Oz and was absolutely dumbfounded by how we divide up our country). There's a good reason all the parties aside from the Democrats and Republicans can't get more than a tiny portion of seats in our Congress, despite the obvious dissatisfaction expressed by many Americans with various aspects of our two party system.

I will note that, in addition to the fact that having two parties is optimal for winning, having more parties can also lead to more polarization and more extreme candidates. The smaller your party gets, the more vulnerable you become to extreme minorities. This is visible in the US Republican party, which only has the House now due to Gerrymandering, and who lost the electoral college by a huge margin - and it appears that its only going to get worse for them as they are kicking out many of their most appealing candidates, so that they can run more extremist theocrats and free market fundamentalists. If someone like Santorum or Ron Paul won their primary, they would be utterly destroyed by the Democrats, and every year it seems that they're getting closer to this happening - they LOST ground in the Senate due to this very mechanism.

Very small parties become vulnerable to this because if suddenly some extreme group makes up a large enough percentage of them they can take over, and then the party becomes essentially even smaller and more exclusive.

This is why having large numbers of parties can be extremely bad, because ultimately, the goal is pluralism, NOT mob rule.

One might think "Well, couldn't you just run in the middle?" but this is the golden mean fallacy. Not only is the middle often a very poor position, but people can be easily drawn away by any particular promise, and you're likely to weaken whichever candidate is less extreme (and thus closest to you) the most, while helping out the most extreme candidate.

Quote:

What makes you thing they care in the slightest? There are always enough people who the TV ads can fool; and these days MOST people don't support (vote for) anyone. We won't get real options until "none of the above" is a ballot choice.

70% of people age 18+ vote.

Quote:

I've looked through the entire Constitution, and I haven't seen any such thing in it. The only mention of secrecy at all is regarding the journals kept by the houses of the legislature. This whole idea that evidence disappears because it might embarrass someone in the government? That idea needs to be fired into the sun.

The real problem is that judges need to be able to review the information.

So called "democratic" governments around the world are behaving in a manner antithetical to democracy. Political parties are doing the same, by rigging electoral rules so that only major parties have a chance to win elections. Then of course we have gerrymandering, and so much money flowing into political parties from companies that expect to buy loyalty for their buck.

Our children, and our children's children, are going to have a good amount of justification in blaming us for the many ills that will no doubt eventually surface from this period. We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

Voting isn't even all that essential to the process nor is it our greatest power. Our greatest power as the people is the jury and our ability to nullify. When you serve as a juror it isn't just your responsibility to decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, you also have the right to not agree with the law they violated. Nullification is our power to strike down laws in the courts, even if the state prosecution has you believing (and regardless if they are right or wrong) a defendant is guilty you can still move to nullify because you don't agree with the law he's being charged with breaking.

The problem with nullification is that it can be used for "not guilty! I'm not sending a white guy to jail" as easily as for more noble causes.

The mere knowledge that the gov't is doing something to combat crime helps criminals, therefore every police service, from your local cop up to the head of DHS and the CIA are covered by this 'state secret' doctrine, so no more photographing/videos of cops in public.

And your speeding ticket will now consist only of your drivers license information and the amount you have to submit to the government. Everything else, including where to go/what to do to contest the charge is a state secret, because terrorists might use that information to target our justice system. Or to file FOI requests.

Our children, and our children's children, are going to have a good amount of justification in blaming us for the many ills that will no doubt eventually surface from this period. We hold the power of the vote, and there are no excuses to let this sort of cloak and dagger rubbish run unchecked.

Voting isn't even all that essential to the process nor is it our greatest power. Our greatest power as the people is the jury and our ability to nullify. When you serve as a juror it isn't just your responsibility to decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, you also have the right to not agree with the law they violated. Nullification is our power to strike down laws in the courts, even if the state prosecution has you believing (and regardless if they are right or wrong) a defendant is guilty you can still move to nullify because you don't agree with the law he's being charged with breaking.

The problem with nullification is that it can be used for "not guilty! I'm not sending a white guy to jail" as easily as for more noble causes.

It also doesn't work for cases like this, where the people sue the government. No jury. And the judge either buys "it's a state secret" or the gov't tells him to shove it and appeals up until a judge does buy it.

These pesky citizens!! With their "inalienable rights" and demand to know what we're doing! Don't they realize that we're protecting their freedom?

I get the impression that the people shooting down these information requests really do view groups like the EFF as enemies... they completely fail to understand why citizens can't be happy living with a government that does half of its business under the table.

These people are on the right track, especially when they begin to address the PRIVACY of the people.... once we get that debate going...there is no stopping us. Let's get back to the place where government is afraid of its people.

These people are on the right track, especially when they begin to address the PRIVACY of the people.... once we get that debate going...there is no stopping us. Let's get back to the place where government is afraid of its people.

It's TOTALLY private. The government won't tell anybody what it knows about you. Well, it may forward it to pretty much any other gov't that it's "friends" with that requests it [hell, it might just share everything]. But they keep it private from you.

You mean according to the US government/army (although it may be true if we start including all three letter agencies?). Guess what the Chinese gov/army is saying about their offensive cyber operations.. Just look at the EU report on Echelon.

ECHELEON is not a soley US project, it is a signals intelligence proejct (not a cyber operation, though it can pick up said traffic), and there isn't really evidence to suggest that the US uses it for industrial espionage, though it surely picks up industrial signals traffic, and it has caught them doing illegal things (Airbus got caught bribing the Saudis for instance, and I have zero sympathy for that coming out into the open).

Whether they have used it for industrial espionage is questionable, in the sense of trying to steal industrial secrets.

Anticrawl wrote:

Voting isn't even all that essential to the process nor is it our greatest power. Our greatest power as the people is the jury and our ability to nullify. When you serve as a juror it isn't just your responsibility to decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, you also have the right to not agree with the law they violated. Nullification is our power to strike down laws in the courts, even if the state prosecution has you believing (and regardless if they are right or wrong) a defendant is guilty you can still move to nullify because you don't agree with the law he's being charged with breaking.

Nullification is really, really bad and is a spit in the eye of the law. Its a major flaw of the jury system, and a violation of the 14th Amendment.

The reason it is possible is because it is impossible to ban it effectively.

Bad people love jury nullification.

kindakrazy wrote:

It's TOTALLY private. The government won't tell anybody what it knows about you. Well, it may forward it to pretty much any other gov't that it's "friends" with that requests it [hell, it might just share everything]. But they keep it private from you.